Agency warns consumers with anti-scam drive
The new National Consumer Agency (NCA) has compiled the table for an anti-scams campaign starting tomorrow, April Fool’s Day.
This week at an international anti-scams conference in Dublin the NCA reckoned Irish consumers were last year cheated of €350 million through fraud and deceptions. The NCA is urging consumers to wise up to fraud through the post, on the phone, by email or from strangers in the street.
NCA chairwoman Ann Fitzgerald said: “Every day hundreds of Irish people are being defrauded of hard-earned cash by scammers.”
Many of the 10 scams are different versions of simple “advance fee fraud” where consumers are promised riches in return for a sum of money up front.
One version sweeping Ireland is the bogus Spanish lottery letter promising a €600,000 prize in exchange for bank and personal details or an up-front payment.
Armed with the information, crooks clear out bank accounts or cash the payment and disappear.
Victims of such scams are added to a “suckers’ list” and targeted repeatedly for other frauds on similar lines.
At the Dublin conference at Malahide’s Grand Hotel, consumer law enforcers from Britain, France and Ireland debated setting up closer ties to combat cross-border scams.
These happen when cheats in one country target victims in another, knowing lack of international cooperation means the frauds are unlikely to be detected.
The conference, organised by Britain’s Office of Fair Trading, heard British consumers were defrauded of €5 billion a year. The NCA reckons, based on British figures, Irish consumers last year lost €350m.
Tomorrow’s campaign — which is genuine — also targets newcomers to Ireland following census figures showing 10% of the population are non-nationals.
Information leaflets will be sent to cultural centres, government offices, churches, shops and also through organisations like the Immigrant Council of Ireland.
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